Popayán Trade Center: From sketch to a completed 12-story building

How I designed and developed Popayán Trade Center, a 12-story office and retail building in Colombia, from early sketches to its completed glass facade.

Popayán Trade Center is a 12-story retail and office building with 8,696 m² of floor area in Colombia. I designed it and also served as the project developer and manager, with ENCORD and JCC S.A.S. as partners, from 2019 to 2024. Its facade went through several stages before construction, each retaining the same idea: glass divided into separate planes and perforated panels with a branch pattern.

The first idea for Popayán Trade Center

The first decision concerned the building's overall form. A 12-story tower could have been a glass box, which was what I wanted to avoid: a smooth surface that tall looks heavy beside the neighboring houses. From the start, the facade was divided into angled planes, as though the tower were made of several sheets that did not quite line up.

The base took shape at the same stage. Retail occupies the street level, with offices above. In a commercial building, the ground floor is the most visible and the easiest to lease, so it could not be a closed-off base.

The design development sketch

Materials entered the design at the next stage. Wood-colored vertical strips appeared between the glass planes, and the side became a white surface of perforated panels with an organic pattern. In this sketch, I also drew the neighboring two-story houses and surrounding trees, because the scale of an office building is judged from the sidewalk.

The glass facade and branch-pattern panels

The facade has two materials that do different jobs. The glass planes reflect the sky and the surrounding hills, so the building looks different depending on the weather. The perforated panels filter the light entering the offices and, seen from the street, form a branch pattern.

That dual purpose helped me make the case for keeping the panels: the branch motif and the sun filter are the same element. Removing them to save money would also mean losing the offices' sun protection.

In the rendering, the white panels already wrap around the tower's corners, and the glass appears blue. The wood-colored strips from the sketch were dropped. The design retained two materials, glass and panels, making the facade easier to read at that height.

From rendering to construction

In the completed building, the glass is blue-green and reflects the sky. The light-colored panels sit at the corners, as in the rendering, and the retail spaces operate on the ground floor. On the Popayán Trade Center project page, you can slide between the rendering and the finished building's photo, and watch a video of the sketch being drawn.

Inside, the lobby has green walls that continue the facade's vegetation theme.

Designing as the developer and project manager

I designed this building and, as its developer and project manager, was also responsible for costs and construction. That changes how you design. A facade idea has to hold up against a budget of about COP 31.2 billion and a five-year timeline. It is easier to carry the idea through when the same team draws it, prepares the budget, and manages construction.

For a business or investor considering an office building in Colombia, that is the lesson I take from this case: a convincing sketch has limited value unless someone carries the design through to handover.

Planning a commercial or office building

If your company is considering a retail or office building, or you want to know whether a lot can accommodate one, contact me with what you have: the lot, your intended uses, and your current stage. You can also request a quote. If you are planning a retail space or restaurant, I explain how to design and fit out a commercial space in Colombia. The services page covers the full scope of my work, from design to construction management.